Sakura of DOOM

I did think Itempas was a very interesting jerk! I also like the contrast of his physical form being a black man, because having a black man as the embodiment of order and justice and rules runs very opposite to trope. Although I also did see why Jemisin was a bit hesitant about making the main villain of the trilogy black. I think I was more leery about having a continent full of black people (Maro) sunk into the sea, although it was offset much more by a) the main ruling god of the universe for 2000 years choosing a black man as a physical form and b) lots of poc in lots of other places in the book.

Uh, that was a bit of a digression. But yeah, I am really interesting to see different people's reactions because the two books felt very different to me, and it's hardly the author's fault that she hits almost all my squee buttons in book 1 and made book 2 very different.